Quotes
"The elk are the most abundant large herbivores in the Yellowstone ecosystem. There are thousands and thousands of them. They migrate in and out. And those migration routes need to stay open."
David Quammen
"A world without huge regions of total wilderness would be a cage; a world without lions and tigers and vultures and snakes and elk and bison would be - will be - a human zoo. A high-tech slum."
Edward Abbey
Rocky Mountain Elk
Elk, (Their Native American name wapiti), are among the largest and most abundant wild animals in Rocky Mountain National Park. As many at 3,200 elk are scattered throughout the park during the summer and fall months, with 600-800 elk spending winter in the park. Many spill over to Estes Park, the town at the gate to RMNP.
"The elk are the most abundant large herbivores in the Yellowstone ecosystem. There are thousands and thousands of them. They migrate in and out. And those migration routes need to stay open."
David Quammen
"A world without huge regions of total wilderness would be a cage; a world without lions and tigers and vultures and snakes and elk and bison would be - will be - a human zoo. A high-tech slum."
Edward Abbey
Rocky Mountain Elk
Elk, (Their Native American name wapiti), are among the largest and most abundant wild animals in Rocky Mountain National Park. As many at 3,200 elk are scattered throughout the park during the summer and fall months, with 600-800 elk spending winter in the park. Many spill over to Estes Park, the town at the gate to RMNP.
A bull elk’s bugle is an incredible, surreal sound; described as a combination of grunts, screeching trumpets, and high-pitched shrieks and shouts (you really have to hear it to believe it). These bugles are meant to communicate to the cow elk in the area, and also meant to alert other bull elk that the bugling bull is ready to defend his cows.
Late September to early November is the Rut season for the Elk. Their calls can be heard all across the mountains.
Elk can grow to be quite large – male elk, called bulls, can grow to as much as 1,100 pounds and stand 5+ feet tall at the shoulder! Bulls also grow and shed large antlers each season, which can grow up to 4 feet long. Female elk, called cows, typically grow up to 600 pounds.
Covid Info
Covid-19 is only the latest disease linked to wildlife trafficking. Unless we change our behavior significantly it won't be the last. It is claimed that Huanan seafood market in Wuhan is the origin for this virus. Unfortunately, seafood markets (in China) have more than just seafood. They have wild animals such as primates, crocodiles, wolf pups, civets, snakes, turtles, bamboo rats, porcupines, live fish and mongoose, packed together in cages.
They are live specimens, most of them illegally smuggled from their wild habitats, and butchered on demand by the sellers. To keep the remaining meat fresh, it is kept on ice slabs from where blood spreads.And this is the reason why these markets are called the wet markets.
Scientists at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) have already declared these wet markets as “Time Bombs” for future diseases. Scientists have tentatively concluded that the Covid-19 originated in bats and entered humans from a secondary host animal, most probably pangolins.
-From Sierra magazine.
Fiction from Colorado History
Murder in the Rockies
Two Miles High and Six Feet Under
www.amazon.com/Two-Miles-High-Feet-Under/dp/1478789565